After a rough winter, we’re all ready to enjoy spring. Spring is a time of refreshment. At home, spring’s arrival sparks the family to clean out the garage, reorganize cluttered closets, and spruce up the landscape. Your business deserves a spring cleaning, too. Here are five tips for spiffing up your business: Start with a desk purge. Sort through all the loose papers. Give yourself more newfound workspace by finding a better place for that stack of folders. You probably have a junk drawer, too, right? Yep, you can probably pitch those old business cards and the loose paper clips. Put technology to work as your spring-cleaning ally. Make “the cloud” your new filing cabinet by moving almost all paperwork to cyberspace. Compared to your conventional files, cloud solutions are easier to organize, more secure, and less prone to errors. You can inexpensively store vast amounts of information—including client, prospect, and financial files—and access what you need from anywhere. Scrub your email inbox. Don’t have time to go through hundreds of messages? Delete or archive messages in mass by date, sender, or subject. Next, make use of your email system’s organizational tools, such as flags, folders, and categories, to set up a better sorting system. Look sharp online by polishing up your website. Does it have a fresh, modern design? Is it up to date and easy to navigate? Is your home page compelling and graphic, or is it dominated by dense copy and cluttered with stuff that could go elsewhere? Within a few seconds, will a first-time visitor get a sense of your business type and the value you offer customers? Shop around for a web designer to help you give the website a long-overdue overhaul. Get your employees involved—not just in cleaning their workspaces, but also in taking a fresh look at new ways to invigorate the business. Pick a nice day for an outdoor picnic—and use that setting to build enthusiasm by asking your team for ideas on 2015’s challenges and opportunities. Does your business have an annual “spring cleaning” initiative? What does it entail? How do you make it a positive event for employees?
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